


Come Home With Me

by icaruswontmelt



Category: Minecraft (Video Blogging RPF), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Dream SMP semi-canon compliant, Dream Smp, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, it's new but i swear it works, mute!Karl Jacobs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-17
Updated: 2021-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-26 17:20:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30109392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icaruswontmelt/pseuds/icaruswontmelt
Summary: Sapnap has never been interested in tales of heroes and battles and blades. There’s enough gore on his sword already, he doesn’t need to imagine someone else’s. He’s never really needed to know many stories either, he’s not prone to grand declarations filled with the names and deeds of the long dead. Orpheus and Eurydice stuck with him though. He never understood how Orpheus could look back.Now he lays near a campfire with a warm body tucked under one arm and a cold absence by the other, and he understands. He understands completely.__Quackity is in Las Nevadas. Karl and Sapnap wait for him to come home.
Relationships: Alexis | Quackity/Karl Jacobs/Sapnap, GeorgeNotFound & Sapnap (Video Blogging RPF)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 193





	Come Home With Me

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so I know the mute!Karl thing is weird but I swear it makes sense. The guy never speaks during lore bits, his character is always silent. Even during that bit where Quackity was getting brought to the egg by Bad, Karl followed them around and only sent things through chat or left notes. Mayhaps Karl doesn't just time travel to help people, mayhaps he time travels because the new body/persona he gets whenever he travels is able to speak.
> 
> Idk, I'm just vibing. It's a fun headcanon/au. 
> 
> Also I don't think it needs to be said but this is only shipping stuff for the fiance Characters and not the actual Streamers. At time of posting all three have given the all clear for sfw shipping content of their characters, but if that changes then I'll take down the fic.

All the skilled fighters in the SMP seem to know enough stories and mythology to speak in riddles and references for the rest of their lives, but Sapnap only knows one myth by heart. 

George was the one that told it to him, back on the shores of the lake when the community house was only half built and the world was ripe and lush. They sliced fruit and let the fish swim around their juice tipped fingers. George’s voice was clear and awake, his goggles hanging around his neck. 

Orpheus and Eurydice were in love, George told him. Terribly, beautifully, achingly in love. But the world was cruel, and Eurydice died. Orpheus couldn’t stand to live in a word without his lover, so he traveled to the underworld to get her back. He made a deal with the king of the dead.

Dream had interrupted and said that if he’d been in Orpheus’ position, he’d have just fought Hades and brought Eurydice back by force. George had rolled his eyes. Sapnap had smiled at the idea of his friend becoming powerful enough to fight a god. It’d been so silly at the time. His friend, with scraped elbows and a grin too broad for his face, with the power to defeat death itself. He doesn’t smile about it now. 

It was only later, that very night after Dream had fallen asleep that Sapnap asked George to finish the rest of the story. What deal could a man make with the god of death? George told him that the king took pity on Orpheus’ heart. Even the king had someone by his side, even the king knew love. However, he couldn’t just let Orpheus take his lover away on a whim. There was a test. Orpheus and Eurydice were free to make the return journey to the land of the living.

But if Orpheus looked back at Eurydice even once before they reached the surface, she’d be taken back to the underworld forever. 

No second chances. 

At the very edge of the living world, Orpheus looked back.

Sapnap has never been interested in tales of heroes and battles and blades. There’s enough gore on his sword already, he doesn’t need to imagine someone else’s. He’s never really needed to know many stories either, he’s not prone to grand declarations filled with the names and deeds of the long dead. Orpheus and Eurydice stuck with him though. He never understood how Orpheus could look back. 

Now he lays near a campfire with a warm body tucked under one arm and a cold absence by the other, and he understands. He understands completely.

* * *

One version of the story says that Orpheus looked back because of doubt. Doubt that his lover trusted him enough to come with him, doubt that the king told the truth, doubt that he was worthy enough of his lover to bring her back to life. 

Karl lays out a cobble and stone foundation for their home with tulips around the edges. George had built his own home into a hillside while they were putting the finishing touches on the library. After a mumbled goodbye he’d gone in and fallen asleep, slipping once more into the hibernation he’d grown so accustomed to. The fiancés let him rest. 

With a brief flurry of hands, Karl asks Sapnap if he thinks the house should be wider or taller. 

“What if we make it wide at the base and then make smaller floors as we go up? Like a layer cake,”

Karl grins and swoops his hands up in an upside down “v” before miming taking something off his hand.

_Wedding cake._

Sapnap smiles and takes Karl’s left hand, pressing a kiss to the two-stoned ring on his finger.

“A wedding cake,”

Karl pushes at his shoulder and keeps building.

The forest around their home is a darker green than the one that used to be around the community house. The flowers bring enough life and color into the landscape so it isn’t oppressive, but the space still feels untamed and unknown. 

Sapnap has never had a problem with the wild places so long as he has someone by his side. Karl, the very one who brought them to the new forest, seems ever eager to weave their own home into the world. Sapnap wonders what Quackity would think. 

Out of the three, he’s always leaned more into the luxurious life. Nothing grand — he could never afford anything grand — but the man knows his comforts and preferences. 

When the house is finished there’ll be a warm roof for their heads and the wheat farm they set up their first night will be providing them with all the food they could want. Would that be enough?

Sapnap forces his hands to be steady as he cuts down another tree. He’s never been the classiest guy. He’s got too many scars and calluses to be harmless and he’s too loud to be considered gentle by most. Karl is charming and kind, a soft hoodie where Sapnap is harsh netherite. Quackity would come home, he’d _stay_ for Karl, but would he do the same for Sapnap?

A sharp whistle knocks him out of his thoughts and directs his attention to the unfinished house. Karl waves him over. Sapnap goes. 

Karl takes the axe from his hands and sets it on the stone beside him. His hands move quickly, but Sapnap keeps up. 

_What are you thinking about?_

“You,”

Karl’s eyebrows raise. Doubtful. 

“And Q. And me,”

A nod. 

_What about us?_

“I want him to come home.” Sapnap shuffles his feet, “I miss him,”

_I miss him too._

Sapnap pauses, searching for words. Karl waits.

“Why do you think he didn’t come with us?”

Sapnap waits. Karl’s mouth twists, hands making aborted movements before he settles on an answer. 

_He’ll come when it’s time._

“How do you know?”

_Love._

Sapnap rolls his eyes and looks away, but Karl snaps his fingers and brings him back to attention. 

_We love him and he loves us. The three of us have been separate before but we always come back together. He’ll come home._

Sapnap nods hesitantly. Karl pulls him into a hug. He feels Karl’s middle and ring finger fold. His thumb, index, and little finger press hard into his back. 

“I love you too,”

* * *

One version of the story says that Orpheus actually reached the land of the living. Consumed by joy he spun around in the sunlight to see his lover, only to find her feet not yet over the threshold. He’d made it, but she never did. 

Sapnap has never been one for the limelight, and he knows Karl prefers to do whatever work he does in the shadows. And he knows Karl is doing something, he’s not stupid. Karl will tell him when he’s ready, and Sapnap will be there.

Neither of them have had a clear nemesis or great villain to conquer. Or at least, Sapnap thinks as he remembers scraped elbows and a wide smile, not a villain they want to fight. They serve at the periphery, never risking burning themselves in the spotlight. They’ve got too much to lose. 

After the fall of L’Manberg and Dream’s imprisonment it seemed like the play was over. No need for side characters when the stage lights are off and the curtain is down. Sapnap was free, so when Karl led him and George to a flower forest he saw no reason not to follow. The darkness and death was behind them. It was time to live in the sunlight. 

Light filters through the leaves, leaving glowing patterns of gold and green on George beneath the tree. Sapnap and Karl take turns throwing acorns at him from the roof of their halfway-done home. 

They’d never been great builders, but between a few hasty fixes and a lot of waking up George to ask for advice the house was looking great. George had given up on hiding in his house and instead started dozing around the mushroom-themed cluster of buildings. The choice meant the fiancés were less likely to break into his house, but it also left him vulnerable to attack. 

One of Karl’s acorns hits the lenses of one of George’s goggles, the thunk of contact audible from their perch on the roof. George startles awake, and Sapnap pulls his partner back off the roof to hide behind the second floor’s walls. Sapnap presses a hand to his mouth to suppress his own laughter, and Karl’s shoulders shake with silent giggles. 

Quackity was never too good at keeping down his own laughter. It always crept into his voice even minutes after the fact, his words curved and lilting. Sapnap misses the sound.

There’s a thwack and a cracking pain in the back of his head. An acorn falls onto the spruce slabs.

“Your aim is terrible and your hiding is worse,”

Sapnap raises a hand up to cup the back of his head and turns to face George. His arms are folded and his goggles are off for the first time since...Sapnap can’t remember. He squints up at them from the ground, the sun in his eyes. Sapnap thinks it’s kind of funny.

“Still got you, didn’t we?”

“Only on the billionth try, if all the acorns I found are any sign,”

“Hey Karl’s aim is the bad one, not mine,”

“So you’re saying you’re the one that hit me?” 

George twists something in his hand and Sapnap realizes he has another acorn.

“Well, no.” He reaches behind him and pushed Karl in front, “Karl got a lucky shot,”

“Did he?”

Karl frantically waves his hands in denial, but his obvious laughter doesn’t help his case. Sapnap can feel his ribs shaking beneath his hands.

“It’s not _that_ funny,” Sapnap mumbles through a smile.

Karl shakes his head and reaches back to where the acorn hit Sapnap’s head. He collapses back into Sapnap’s chest and shakes his head, unable to keep it together enough to explain. There are tiny, audible gasps and wheezes of laughter. Sapnap holds him close, hiding a smile in his hair.

“PDA!” An acorn hits the wall near them.

“Sorry!” Sapnap calls out, but doesn’t loosen his grip until Karl stands on his own. 

_When it hit you_ , he signs and shakes his head, _your face._

Karl bulges his eyes and drops his mouth open a little.

_Very silly._

Sapnap pinches his side, “Mean,”

Karl puts his hand on Sapnap’s neck and kisses him. Near his pulse, he feels Karl’s ring and middle finger fold. 

An acorn hits the wall.

“PDA!” Another acorn, “I’m not gonna stop throwing these until I know the criminal,”

Sapnap steps away from Karl, “It was just an acorn, it’s not that big of a deal,”

“One of the lenses is cracked now,”

“Seriously?”

George rolls his eyes, “No, I’m completely joking about the goggles I’ve had for years being broken,”

The duo climb down the scaffolding nearby and holds out his hand. George passes him the goggles. A spiderweb of cracks stretch out from the center of the left lense, rendering it useless. 

“Shit, I’m sorry. I know you liked them,”

Out of the corner of his eye Sapnap sees Karl’s fist move in a circle over his chest. 

George sighs and takes back the goggles, “It’s fine,”

George’s thumb runs over the cracks. He swallows hard. It’s not fine.

“We could get them repaired though, right? Or get you new ones?”

“Not really. I don’t know where they’re from or how they’re made,”

“Why not?”

“Dream gave me them,”

Oh. 

George drops his hand and lets the broken headwear hang from his fingers, “It’s fine. They’re just goggles, I’ll get over them,”

He goes back to his house. Sapnap doesn’t follow. After an hour, though, Karl taps his shoulder and nods to the door in the hillside. He waves his hand out.

_Go._

Inside George’s home it’s cool. George once told him that the natural insulation from the earth surrounding the house means it’s always a comfortable temperature.

It isn’t particularly spacious. A handful of chests and furnaces cling to the walla. The two windows are flanked with sheer white curtains. A clean blue carpet reaches from the entrance to the only other door in the house, left wide open to show George sitting on his bed with goggles in hand. 

The floorboards creak below Sapnap’s feet and George looks up at the intrusion. His gaze narrows in suspicion until Sapnap lifts the small bag of apples in his hand. George moves over and Sapnap takes a seat at his side. 

They slice apples. They talk.

When the floor is littered with apple cores and peels, when their fingers are tipped with tears and juice, when the lanterns have burned low, the two friends lay side by side and stare at the ceiling. They don’t run out of words for a long time. 

Before the sun rises they sweep the floors and throw the goggles into the lake. The friends watch them sink.

When the sun is well over the horizon and the sky is a budding blue, George says he’s going to take a nap. He promises to be awake again by the end of the day. Sapnap believes him. 

When Sapnap goes to his home, Karl is waiting for him at the door. He doesn’t stop him from collapsing into the bed, just pulls off his shoes once he’s down and curls into his side. 

Sapnap feels pressure on his chest and looks down. Karl’s hand is a turned fist, his thumb pressing into the space below Sapnap’s collar

_Proud._

Sapnap places his hand over his love’s. 

How must Orpheus have felt to be in the embrace of daylight only to find out Eurydice was still in darkness? He’d thought the story was over and the tale was told, a happy ending, but he was wrong. He was so wrong. 

Before their hands fall flat, for a moment Karl’s hand almost reaches across Sapnap’s chest in search of another. It’s only a moment. Sapnap’s lungs ache in it.

He and Karl have never been the stars of the show, and that’s okay. When the curtain fell they took their chance to leave the stage. But the curtain always rises for another act, and Quackity was born for the spotlight. 

Sapnap holds Karl’s hand tight. The theater is dark and untamable and cruel, but if they go in together he knows they’ll be okay.

* * *

One version of the story says that Orpheus was patient, and faithful, and would’ve made it to the very end if not for one thing. The deal wasn’t just that he couldn’t tell if Eurydice was there and wasn’t allowed to look back, it was that he could hear her but wasn’t allowed to acknowledge her at all. And she didn’t know. She thought she was ignored. Abandoned. Alone. 

The walk from their mushroom home to Las Nevadas is long. Sapnap thinks it must feel very bad to take the trip alone. 

Karl squeezes his hand, and though his eyes are wary his smile is genuine. Sapnap squeezes back, feeling the two-stoned ring on Karl’s finger in his grip. They’re never alone. 

They crest a hill and there is the towering casino. It’s sublime and refined, professional and cold despite the hot lights flashing. 

They see Quackity before he sees them. Their love stands in front of the casino, head tilted back to gaze at his property and his plan. He looks determined. He looks alone. 

Sapnap considers sneaking up and surprising him, but Karl ruins that plan by letting out a loud whistle.

Quackity snaps around so fast that for a second Sapnap is worried he’s hurt his neck. That second passes quickly, because soon Quackity is bowling into their arms and Sapnap thinks _finally_ and Karl’s folded ring and middle fingers press _I love you_ into them both and Sapnap doesn’t know what comes next but he doesn’t _care_ because he has the loves of his life in his arms and nothing and no one will _ever_ take that away from him. 

Quackity’s shoulders shake and tears wet the front of Sapnap’s shirt. They hold him tighter. 

Orpheus turned around because he couldn’t bear to leave Eurydice alone and in pain for even a moment longer. He turned around because _You’re not alone, I’m here, I want you to stay, Come home._

**Author's Note:**

> As the kids would say, "pogchamp". 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! You can find me on tumblr at surreal-static.
> 
> If you didn’t know, the fic title comes from a song of the same name off a musical called “Hadestown”. It’s about Orpheus and Eurydice and other cool stuff, and that song especially is very nice. Highly reccomend. 
> 
> Comments are much appreciated.


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